Tag: Children

Every year, Mother’s Day comes around and a few days before many of us scramble to get her the perfect gift at the last minute.

This year, we are encouraging our Play-Well students to plan ahead and through play, create an amazing gift for your mom that she will truly cherish.

We have provided below ideas and tutorials on a few gifts that you can build out of LEGO® materials. And if you need an added incentive to start building now, if you share what you are able to make with us, you could receive a LEGO® gift for your efforts.

On Saturday March 10th, 2018, Play-Well TEKnologies is offering a free and kid friendly, city of Anthem LEGO® build at the Caurus Academy! Families will build the city of Anthem out of 40,000 LEGO® Bricks! Kids can construct the Adventure Playground, Daisy Mountain, their own home, school and favorite park all out of LEGO®. Students will explore hands on architecture through learning about overlapping and how buildings are so strong! All LEGO® materials will be provided by Play-Well. For safety, all kids need to bring an adult.

Families will get the opportunity to build the city of Anthem as they see it, as well as answer these questions through play:

Play-Well TEKnologies teaches LEGO-Inspired STEM Programs to approximately 100,000 kids/year around the U.S. Their goal is to inspire the next generation of engineers, innovators, scientists, and inventors all through the power of play. Kids dive into our classes and exercise their innate gift for building. They come away understanding fundamental principles of engineering and physics. The experience boosts their confidence, creativity and ability to collaborate. For more information, visit play-well.org.

Each summer, we love to inspire the next generation of engineers, scientists, inventors, and creators all through play and 20,000 LEGO® Pieces. So, we are excited to announce that our Play-Well LEGO-Inspired Summer Camps are now here. This year, we are offering camps in 29 states around the country.

20 years ago, our founder, Tim Bowen, had an idea to introduce kids to the world of engineering through playing with LEGO®, when the concept of S.T.E.M. had not even been popularized yet. Since then, Play-Well has been lucky enough to teach over 800,000 kids. Here is the story of how a crazy idea became an engineering program for kids that now teaches over 100,000 kids a year all over the United States.

Thanks, everyone that has ever participated in a Play-Well Program. We couldn’t have gotten here without you.

On Saturday, June 3, 2017, Play-Well TEKnologies and the Hawaii State Public Library will be collaborating together to create an opportunity for families to build the city of Honolulu out of 20,000 LEGO® Bricks. Families will have the opportunity to create Honolulu, as they would like to see it. They can construct the library, downtown Honolulu, their own home, school, playgrounds, parks etc., all out of 20,000 LEGO® pieces all for FREE. Kids will explore hands-on architecture and learn about how to build strong structures out of LEGO® bricks.

On May The Fourth, 2017, Warwick Elementary Families and Play-Well TEKnologies collaborated to build three separate Star Wars Worlds. Those worlds included the Ewok Village, Cloud City, and the trenches of the Death Star. Here is what over 200 families were able to create in just two hours…

On Sunday, April 9th, 2017, hundreds of families from the city of Lawrence, KS came out to build their city out of 50,000 LEGO® pieces. A local Kansas City News Team came by to report on the event. If you wait for the end, you might even see a timelapse of the entire city build. Enjoy!

Parents frequently ask us “How can my kid become a LEGO® Master Builder?” Although we are not LEGO® Master Builders ourselves, we have met a few of them and we have spent a great deal of time in the world of LEGO®. So, we decided the best way to answer these questions is to compile an extensive list of our favorite resources about the various paths of turning your love of LEGO® into a career.

We apologize for the length, as we wanted to make it as comprehensive a list as possible. If you have additional links you’d like to share, feel free to provide them in the comments below.

We have broken it down into two sections:

How Can My Child Become a LEGO® Master Builder?

Can I Get Paid To Play With LEGO® without becoming a LEGO® Master Builder?

We hope you find this helpful.

How Can My Child Become a LEGO® Master Builder – Comprehensive Resource List

Before we begin, we must first define a few job terms in the world of LEGO®.

LEGO® Certified Professionalsis a community-based program made up of adult LEGO® hobbyists who have turned their passion for building and creating with LEGO® bricks into a full-time or part-time profession.

What we found from our research is a complicated truth. There is no specific route to become a LEGO® Master Builder. Master builders and designers come from all different backgrounds and all walks of life. Some builders didn’t even play with LEGO® as a kid!

Dana Brandsema, one of our awesome Play-Well staff, was a LEGO® Master Model Builder back in 2010 at San Diego’s LEGOLAND. Here is her story on how she became a model builder:

If your daughter loves to create unique creations out of LEGO® make sure to snap a lot of photos for her portfolio. One day she may be competing to become the next LEGO® Master Builder.

Not all of the LEGO® Master Builders spend their time making models for theme parks and discovery centers. Former corporate attorney, Nathan Sawaya left his job in New York City to become a full-time LEGO® artist. His brick sculptures have been featured in countless museums and galleries around the world. He is best known for his Art of The Brick Exhibition, which CNN has called “one of the top global exhibitions to see.”

Many of the Master Builders we have come across have a background in the arts including fine art, cartoons and sculpting. Erik Varszegi didn’t play with LEGO® as a child but he did love comic books and Star Wars.

The LEGO® Blockumentary Series is a great resource for parents & kids who want to learn what it’s like during at an average day working for LEGO®. Here is one of Dan Steininger.

If you would like to work at LEGOLAND as a LEGO® Master Model Builder, there is one rite of passage for everyone in this coveted job. The LEGO® Master Model Builder job interview is a live competition where LEGO® fanatics have to build against one another to earn the spot as the newest LEGO® Master Model Builder. Check out this video of a real LEGO® Master Model Builder build competition at the LEGOLAND Discovery Center in Arizona.

According to LEGOLAND staff, “passion and the agility of being creative” are key ingredients to becoming part of the LEGO® team. Here is an infographic from LEGOLAND on how to become a LEGO® Master Model Builder.

That is no reason to be discouraged. There are still hundreds of jobs with LEGO® besides being a Master Builder and working at the LEGO® company is a great way to climb through the ranks. You can start as a gluer, a model builder, product design, transportation logistics, engineering, game design and more. LEGO® is always hiring enthusiastic, passionate people. They have offices and build centers all over the world and many times model builders will have the flexibility to relocate. Check out their online job listings for more information.

Can I Get Paid To Play With LEGO® without becoming a LEGO® Master Builder?

You sure can. Another route to being able to play to build with LEGO® is to explore the world of AFOL: Adult Fans of LEGO®. An entire documentary called The LEGO® Brickumentary depicts the AFOL world and all the awesome people who are part of it.

Quite a few people in the AFOL community have been able to turn their passion of LEGO® into a part or full-time job playing with LEGO®. One of those amazing people, Alice Finch, built gigantic models of both Hogwarts and Rivendell out of LEGO® materials.

Alice may not have the title of a LEGO® Master Builder, but all of her work communicates otherwise. There is Miss Courageous, Millie Higert, who makes LEGO®-Inspired Jewelry. There is the creative artist, Guy Himber, who makes fun, customizable pieces out of LEGO®. Mariann Asanuma, a former LEGO® Master Model Builder, makes models out of LEGO® materials through her organization, Modeling Building Secrets. Joshua Harlan and Matthew Kay turned their love of LEGO® into a film career where they spotlight the world’s top LEGO® builders and their creations on their youtube channel: Beyond The Brick. They recently visited Alice Finch’s house to see her 4 Million LEGO® piece collection.

You can meet tremendous LEGO® builders and creators, just like them, at the AFOL events that happen all over the country and see some of their incredible creations. Here is a list of these LEGO® Conventions.

Here are a few other pretty amazing people creating phenomenal creations with LEGO® materials:

Some of our staff now help build huge structures out of LEGO® materials as a way to bring the community together. Here is one of our favorite recent builds:

Want even more information about becoming a LEGO® Master Builder, artist or designer? We have provided additional articles, interviews, and videos below. If you see a great article or video missing from this list, let us know and we will add it.

We were lucky enough to participate again in Adobe’s Field Trip for their families at their Utah, Seattle, and San Jose office. There were dinosaurs, Hula dancers, gliders, clowns, and of course, we brought the LEGO. Hopefully, we were able to inspire some future engineers in the process.

On Sunday, July 12th, we helped GLIDE and families in the Tenderloin neighborhood build a 7.5 LEGO Heart of their Glide logo for Sunday Streets. A huge reason we were able to build so much of the sign was because of the awesome volunteers from Twitter For Good. Thanks to everyone that helped make this idea become a reality. Check out some of the pictures from the event below:

We began the sign at 11 AM and we only had until 3:30 PM to complete it. (Picture Source: Leah from Twitter)

Kids from all around the tenderloin community came to help. Some simply got off their bicycles to help. (Picture Source: Leah from Twitter)

By 12 PM, we had much of the lettering done and the complete bottom done. (Picture Source: Leah from Twitter)

Here is the awesome designer of the sign, Marco, and Leah, one of the awesome volunteers from Twitter. Without their help, this would never have been completed. (Picture Source: Leah from Twitter)

Now, the unconditionally part of the sign needed to be built. (Picture Source: Alain McLaughlin from Glide)

We are getting closer. (Picture Source: Alain McLaughlin from Glide)

This was one of our phenomenal helpers. She was able to do a lot of the hard part of build, filling in the letters with LEGO. (Picture Source: Alain McLaughlin from Glide)

One interesting challenge of making a sign like this is that pressure is applied to both sides of the sign, so it is much harder to get LEGO into the middle. She was able to do it with some friends. (Picture Source: Alain McLaughlin from Glide)

Almost there. (Picture Source: Alain McLaughlin from Glide)

We even needed a few step stools to get those last pieces up at the top. (Picture Source: Adejire Bademosi from Twitter)

We did it! (Picture Source: Alain McLaughlin from Glide)

The heart will be displayed at freedom hall at Glide Memorial Church. (Picture Source: Dori Caminong)

Let’s just say the Glide staff was excited about it and the entire Sunday Streets event. Thanks for having us! (Picture Source: Alain McLaughlin from Glide)